FoodMan

Dorie- The small size sure make them look cute and classy. However, it really makes working with them (slicing, filling, frosting, glazing) much more labor intensive. I'll tell you one thing though, my skills definitly improved working on these two. Elie

It seems like the ingredient is chocolate. I thought they said so in one of the previews. Poor Mario will go down. Elie

The mohgrabbiya was soaked then, cooked in the liquid. Not steamed. Elie

Seems like Sur La Table has 2 inch ring molds for a decent price. I am not waiting till the end of the month though. I might stop by and pick one up if they have it in the store. Elie

I used my spring form pan. Like Russ says, it is 3 inches deep so it is a little tricky to work with and I am in search of a proper ring mold now. The first two quiches I made came out perfect. this weekend I was supposed to make one for a bruch for some family members at our house. I, like always, made my dough in the food processor (no mixer). Rolled, put in the "ring" of my spring form pan set in a larger cake pan on top of parchement. Checked for leaks, baked blind, patched up one small crack I found. Then I filled with the mushroom filling with the ring still in the same position in the large cake pan that I used in my previous two times and stuck it in the oven. The first five minutes go by fine, then disaster strikes!! The thing must've developed a leak at some point and the crust turned into a strainer with nothing but mushrooms in it and a sea of custard all around. Lucky for me I used the large round cake pan and nothing got on my oven floor. BOY WAS I PISSED!! In the trash it went. Thinking back at to what I did wrong, I think I rolled it thinner than I should in attempting to compensate for my higher "ring" mold. However, I am determined to make the quiche again ASAP. This time maybe I should be a little less confident about it . If I cannot find a ring mold, I'll buy a tart pan, it seems to work for Russ. Apparently there is no such thing as "flawless pastry", only perfect pastry or a messy one. Elie edit: typo

I use razor blades. The flat ones. You can buy them for a few dollars at any hardware store or hardware section at Walmart. Mine come in a pack of ten I think and I have had them for a couple of years. Elie

Here are a few days' worth of dinners. The delay this time is due to troubles with picture uploading : Wednesday: Chow Mein, made with fresh egg noodles and chicken Thursday: -Sweetbreads: Recipe based on Mario's from Babbo cookbook. They were breaded with Wondra flour flavored with roasted ground fennell and panfried. Served on top of onions and bacon in vinegar. The recipe asks for fennel fronds on top. Since I had none I used one of my favorite salad ingredients, leafy hearts of celery with a little olive oil. My 1.5 year old son loved these... Dessert: Bread pudding with apples and Irish cream topped with chocolate sauce Friday: - Leblebi (sp?), based on Paula Wolfert's recipe for North African Chickpea soup. I made this in the crock pot and since I can NEVER properly peel a soft cooked egg, I poached mine instead. The actual dish looked much better in person . I served it with Paula's recipe for Harissa. Saturday: - A sort of Shepherd's pie. Made with Italian sausage and topped with Parmesan mashed potatoes. Sunday: I made chili for Superbowl, based on a Robb Walsh recipe. I used both chicken and beef since I had some chicken meat defrosted. I served it with homemade corn bread baked in a cast iron skillet and spiked with bacon drippings. Dessert: Pave cake from Pierre Herme's Chocolate Desserts book.

Made the Pave this weekend. I used small disposable loaf pans and made half the recipe. The first pic shows the two just baked cakes (excellent, basic chocolate cake recipe. I loved it.) with a 10 inch chef's knife to give you an idea of their size. Sorry fopr the bad quality on some of these pics, I'm usually better than this : As you can tell (hopefully) I glazed one cake and dusted the other one. I think I like the glazed look better. The taste was formidable, moist, rich and deeply satisfying. I was a little surpised by the owrk involved. From reading the instructions they "sounded" easier. Next time I want to make the full recipe in a larger loaf pan. I bet that would look impressive and half the work . Elie

Finally, I got my images uploaded. Here is the Tuscan bread from last week: This weekend I tried the cron bread to go with some chili I made. Wow!! even without the bacon (I did use bacon drippings though) it was wonderful. I baked it in my cast iron skillet. Sorry, for some reason I forgot to take a pic of the whole thing in the skillet. So here is a slice with the chili: Elie

Wow, John I had no idea it was that sophisticated. I will make sure to tell him you sent us when we do go. Elie

The quiche is awsome. I will never use any other method to making it, especially the flawless pastry. Another great advise from the quiche recipe is to cook it the night before and refrigerate. This makes slicing a snap. Elie

These trotters have to be divine. It only emphasizes my need to try them out. Thanks for the pics folks!! I was tempted to make the leg of lamb a couple of times but never got to it. Was it easy to seperate the muscles? From reading it I figured I might need a longer cooking time as well. Great work everyone, Keller would be proud ...I think Elie

Greek for me in Houston always means Niko Niko's. This sounds like a whole different experience though, less casual. Thanks to this review, I will have to give it a try if only to check out the fish with shrimp in it's mouth. Both this and the calamari are wonderful preparations you will never find at the casual, but always good Niko Niko's. Elie

Wnderful cornbread. Another one that I have to try after seeing this. Unfortunatly, I am STILL having problem uploading pictures to eGullet. that is why my Tuscan bread has not made it in this thread yet. Worst case, I will upload the pics from work on Monday if I cannot figure it out this weekend. Tuscan bread, even though saltless, has great taste. So far I used it just like any hearth bread. Topped with soft scrambled eggs, topped with slices of spicy "basterma" (a cured beef), and smeared with butter and salt. I also liked it's taste cubed in a North African chickpea soup dish. This weekend I will bake from another book, the recently acquired "HomeBaking : The Artful Mix of Flour and Traditions from Around the World". A wondeful book that I picked up brand new for $9 at HalfPrice books. Elie

Melkor, this looks great. Thanks for doing it and posting the pics. To make it hold better I would recommend -in addition to a larger amount of meat- to cut the meat into more or less flat thin (< 1/2 inch) slices. I could be wrong but your meat looks a little chunky. Overall this looks better than any shawarma I ever attempted at home. Maybe this will convince the wife to let me buy a rotisserie attachement for the grill . Going back to the Vinegar marinade thing. If you try the Shawarma at a Lebanese joint, the texture is a little soft. Some palces overdo it and marinate it for a long time. Hence, mushy nasty meat. I say, marinate for a few hours and do not use to much vinegar. Looking forward to future experiments. Elie

Houston Chronicle Dining Guide: Surrender To Siam I always enjoy reviews of restaurants outside of the much reviewed inner loop. Alison Cook visits and falls in love with Thai Siam. For the Love of chocolate, and each other Valentine's Day is around the corner and Dai Huynh scouts the city for luscious confections made from the food of the gods- Chocolate. She lists it all, from starwberries, to apricots, to fudge and toffee. Take your pick. Houston Press Dining Section: Modern Masala Robb Walsh visits Ashiana, now under a new owner who seemingly cannot tell lobster from shrimp. The review is not all bad, since they supposedly have the best lunch buffet in town! Elie

I would not mind giving their Extra Virgin Olive Oil a try if the price is right. Anyone tried that? Elie

Judith, these look great! I like the idea of adding cornmeal and rye to make a nice grain bread. What's the yellow tint on the barm? Is that Olive oil? Also, do you slash the bread right after shaping or right before putting in the oven? I ask because the slashes look as if they "healed", which happens sometimes if you slash then let proof. Just curious. Elie

All these serving idea sound good. I would add tahini sauce (taratoor), basically tahini, cumin, garlic and lemon juice thinned with water if necessary. Also some middle eastern pickles like cucumbers and turnips. And definitly a sprinkling of fresh shopped Italian parsley to finich it off. Elie

Ah, but these are the chocolate variety. If there's a forest that grows this kind of truffle, please tell me where! ← ..that's too funny In comparing Plugra to CM I think Plugra has a more distinctive taste. More "sour", if that makes any sense. However, for the money, CM is definitly my top choice. Fifi, glad to hear that HEB has all this stuff!! I will be checking my HEB pretty soon. Elie

Kevin- What kind of rocky experiences? Food or Service or both? Elie

My insisting on no-yogurt is purely based on my own experience and preferences. I just would not use it for Shawarma since the dish I am used to never uses it, but I totally see your reasoning and I bet it will work great. To add on the lamb fat point that Chefzadi mentioned. If you can get some try layering it between the meat layers at several intervals. This will give the meat a wonderful flavor and keep it moist. I can smell it already. Elie

Of cource, not too much acid, or it will alter the texture too much. However, I would still avoid using yogurt. But this is your Shawarma Melkor, so try it as you please and let us know. Elie

This past Saturday my wife and I were going to the movies. Before we headed over to the theatre, and after dropping the little one at my sister-in-laws place, we wanted to pick a place to eat after the movie. My wife suggested we try Hugo’s. So I called, got a reservation and made sure that our casual attire was ok. We got to Hugo’s a few minutes before the reservation time, and were seated promptly. It was around 6 PM and the place was quiet and very nice. Well lit, clean, and the seats are very comfortable. Our waiter was quick to welcome us to the place and asked if we would be interested in wine. Sure we were, and he was very helpful. We decided on a very good CA Zinfandel. It was an excellent choice. The specials for the night included a grouper topped with a large garlic saturated shrimp and crab meat served with corn soufflé, asparagus and guacamole . Another special was a beef fillet, grilled and served with tamales I think. We decided to start with a seafood “cocktail” for an appetizer. Hugo’s offers three or maybe four of them. We went with the last one called somethink like Pulpo De Vida, that had octopus, shrimp, fish and oysters. The seafood was marinated in a light house made tomato based sauce. The dish served in a martini glass was wonderful, the fish fresh and tender and the sauce tangy and lightly spicy. Miles away from your typical thick “cocktail sauce”. It was served with a wedge of avocado and crispy thick tortilla chips which we nibbled on even after the seafood was gone. For our main courses we went with the grouper special for my wife, and a beef fillet from the regular menu for myself. Now usually I am not a big fan of plain grilled tender and relatively flavorless fillet. This one sounded very intriguing though. It is stuffed with Huitlacoche, squash and cheese and served topped with tomatillo sauce. It also comes with refried black beans rich with fresh lard taste and formed into cute quenelles. Another side with the fillet was also grilled asparagus, which was good but not special. Last but not least I also received a small pyramid of Mexican rice. Again very good, perfectly cooked but nothing out of this world. The fillet itself was excellent, and it married wonderfully with the flavorful filling and mildly tangy topping. As always, we always switch plates back and forth while we are eating so I got to try my wife’s grouper. This was a thick fish fillet, grilled perfectly and topped with a mammoth shrimp that has been basted aggressively with mojo di ajo (garlic sauce). The shrimp still had it’s head and tail intact and my wife did not want to touch it thinking it was not peeled! So, I offered to take care of it for her and removed the head and tail and gave her half of it back . The corn soufflé served with this dish worked very well, it tasted like a nice corn bread, but a lot lighter and with nice corn kernels scattered through. Both entrees were winners. Form the dessert menu we picked two. The first is a flourless criolle chocolate cake in the form of a thick triangle. The thin base of the triangle was formed by a dark chocolate cookie. The cake comes with a scoop of dulce de leche ice cream. All ice creams at Hugo’s are homemade. The cake itself was sweet, nutty, bitter and a little tangy. I liked it very much. The ice cream however, was not what I expected. It tasted more like sweet cream ice cream, and had a pale off-white color. No, hints of caramelized milk and sugar could be detected and certainly no light brown caramel color. The other dessert we picked was “Torta De Coco” or coconut tart. This is normally served with dulce de leche ice cream as well. We opted to get Mango instead since the other dessert already had dulce de leche ice cream. This was a very good move. The mango ice cream was divine, tasted like a fresh ripe mango and went great with the tart. The tart itself is a good size round tart pastry filled with “cocomnut goo” and topped with lots of coconut shavings that go slightly brown around the edges when baked. I was very full by them but still managed to polish it off after my wife gave up. Of the two desserts I prefer this one. Hugo’s is certainly one of our new favorites in town now. It won us over with a great atmosphere, excellent service and wonderful food. Anyone else been and cares to share? Elie

Of course. Any suggestions for the marinade? Yoghurt, garlic, cumin, coriander, red pepper, oregano, salt, and pepper is what I've got in my mind. ← No yogurt. The Lebanese version also has some sort of acid in the marinade. Namely vinegar. The base should be olive oil and red wine vinegar in addition to some cardamom, cumin, allspice and any other spice that you like. I am looking forward to this one! Elie